Where the knowledge is

There's a lot of knowledge and content everywhere, but it's really hard to find quality stuff that interests you. I thought I'd maintain an eclectic set of content that I read and watch regularly or have been immensely moved or educated by. The list is a constant work in progress.

New

The history of India after independence is at best glanced over in Indian high school textbooks and at worst, unbeknownst to those not from India. This book taught me so many things that has deepened my understanding of the Indian political climate today. The story of Kashmir, the conjugation of all the princely states, the incredible impact of Nehru, and more. By famous Indian historian and cricket writer Ramachandra Guha.

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky were Israeli psychologists who's work on irrationality of decision making and behavioral economics went on to win the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. The book covers the research he did in all three parts of his career - on cognitive biases, on prospect theory and on happiness.

This podcast named after the book, by journalist Stephen Dubner and UChicago economist and professor Steven Levitt. They host 30-60 minute shows with very stimulating conversations with and about very interesting people from across various fields including Angela Duckworth, Miki Agarwal, Trevor Noah and broad topics such as Bad Medicine.

Hosted by Vox's editor in chief Ezra Klein, the show focuses on 1:1 style interviews focused on deep, thought-provoking questions and not populist ones. His host of impressive guests come from all walks of life, ranging from Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Yuval Harari, Kara Swisher, and more. I find it an a great way to hear about impactful people from different fields like History, Politics, Journalism, Medicine, Law, and more.

I'd imagine most people reading this know what Reddit is. I'm asking you to use it. I've personally started using Reddit lately, and it's a rabbit-hole of very good content, very interesting data, and extremely helpful spam-free advice. I'm still a Reddit noob, but some of my favorite subreddits are r/fitness, r/science, r/tifu, r/dataisbeautiful, r/books and r/todayilearned.

With more than 10 million YouTube subscribers, VSauce is the 62nd most popular Youtube channel there is. He typically does 10-15 minute shallow dives into a question with fantastic production quality including "What is random?", "Is it okay to touch Mars" and more.

A news organization that I started reading much more since I've been watching the Ezra Klein Show, hosted by Vox's editor in chief. They were the news organization that leaked Trump's 4 executive orders in 2017.

Bingeworthy, especially for a foodie. Tells stories of chefs, places, inspiration and food in some of the world's best restaurants. With a touch of magic from the jaw-dropping filmography of David Gelb, this show is stunning on the eyes, and relaxing on the wind. I'm no classical music snob, but the violin of the intro soundtrack sends you into a trance.

A Netflix series which tells the story of Columbian cocaine kingpin and leader of the Medellin Cartel, Pablo Escobar. Pablo, at the height of his career, supplied 80% of the cocaine smuggled into the US and had a modern day net worth of $55 billion.

Directed by Chris Nolan's (the Inception and Dark Knight one) brother Jonathan Nolan, and based on Michael Crichton's 1973 film WestWorld. Westworld is a science fiction masterpiece, delving into artificial intelligence and androids, but with a flawless plot as well.

Stimulating Reads

I'd imagine most people reading this know what Reddit is. I'm asking you to use it. I've personally started using Reddit lately, and it's a rabbit-hole of very good content, very interesting data, and extremely helpful spam-free advice. I'm still a Reddit noob, but some of my favorite subreddits are r/fitness, r/science, r/tifu, r/dataisbeautiful, r/books and r/todayilearned.

A blog by Scott Alexander, a psychiatrist practicing in the US Midwest about science, medicine, philosophy, politics, and futurism.

Hacker News The one stop source for all the latest news and information in technology. Far eclipses competitors like TechCrunch in quality density and speed.

Noam Chomsky's Articles Words from possibly the world's leading intellectual. His thoughts on media, government, policy, economy, and linguistics are a formative influence.

Philip Guo's Blog Philip Guo, most famous for The PhD Grind, his 122-page e-book about his PhD experience, gives great advice for high school, college and graduate students, programmers, immigrant parents and more.

Five Thirty Eight Nate Silver's data-centric blog, 538, gained popularity after predicting the 2008 US Elections, and continues to publish some of the most interesting reads and inferences from data.

Repugnant Conclusions A blog by a Harvard Divinity School students on reasoning about the ethics and morality of things, instead or arbitrarily accepting and rejecting them based on social norms. He deals with issues like bestiality, abortion, necrophilia, pedophilia, and more.

Andrej Karpathy's Blog Andrej Karpathy is a really smart hacker PhD student at Stanford, previously under Andrew Ng, and now Fei Fei Li, who does amazing things with convolutional neural nets and gives some great concrete advice which I wish I'd followed more and the best intuitive guide to neural nets I've ever seen.

Schneier on Security Bruce Schneier is the Chuck Norris of the computer security world, and his blog is read by a quarter of a million people. He's a former NSA official and long time code breaker who's widely regarded at the leader in his field. Don't forget to catch his beautiful TED talk as well.

Krebs on Security Brian Krebs is a former Washington Post reporter and a long term veteran reporting on computer security who writes non-technically about current major security issues, exploits and hacks.

Sam Altman's Blog Venture capitalist and lecturer of the Stanford course on "How To Start a Startup" speaks about startups, technology and entrepreneurship.

SMBC Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC) is a comic strip that features atheism, romance, science, research and the meaning of life.

PhD Comics PhD, or Piled Higher and Deeper, is a comic strip written by Caltech instructor Jorge Cham that follows graduate students' lives and stories.

9gag From memes to stories, funny pictures to cute things, GIFs to NSFW stuff, and even videos, 9gag has all sorts of miscellaneous humour.

The Oatmeal Home to famous Nikola Tesla and Mantis Shrimp comics, The Oatmeal, created in 2009 by Matthew Inman, covers an eclectic range of topics. Inman says it typically takes 7-8 hours of research to produce one comic.

Recent Trends and Cool Things

Every now and then you'll hear of a interesting idea, or a cool invention that gets lost amongst other news. I wanted to keep a list so I could follow up.

Magic Leap Completely unrelated to Leap Motion, the Magic Leap came into the limelight when Google funded it $500 million in Series B. This is an unprecedented amount of funding for a company with no product. Founded by Rory Abovitz, who previously sold a medical company for $1.65b, and based in Florida, Magic Leap has invented what they're calling a "Dynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal" that seems to be a headset-less virtual reality that your brain processes as part of the real world.

23andMe At $99, 23andMe tests your DNA and reports interesting things about your health such as the likelihood you'll acquire a bunch of diseases, your racial break down, and your ancestry. Interestingly, one of the founders, Anne Wojcicki, was married to Sergey Brin, of Google.

Oculus Rift The biggest thing in virtual reality, in 2013-14 (at the time of writing this), Oculus provides a headset that seamlessly provides a sci-fi like virtual reality experience. It has since been acquired by Facebook.

Leap Motion The Leap Motion is a sensor that rests on your desk above which you can use your hand to interact with different devices. It uses some crazy math to be able to, from unassumingly resting on your desk, quite accurately detect the positions of all of your fingers above it with low latency. Many claim it is not as accurate as advertised.

News and Magazines

There's too much bad media everywhere, and it's hard to get the "real story" in well-phrased readable form. These guys do a good job. I personally use Longform to consume news from multiple sources, and highly recommend it.

A news organization that I started reading much more since I've been watching the Ezra Klein Show, hosted by Vox's editor in chief. They were the news organization that leaked Trump's 4 executive orders in 2017.

The New York Times Largely regarded as the world's leading newspaper shows news from the US and all over the world, and has one of the best Opinion pages out there.

The New Yorker An American magazine which not only deals with the cultural life of New York City, but also covers politics, pop culture and more.

Quartz Quartz is a web-native news publication that is the first infinite-scroll news provider. The quality density is high, and the scroll format keeps you hooked.

The Atlantic An American magazine that contains particularly good reads in Education and other things.

Books

The history of India after independence is at best glanced over in Indian high school textbooks and at worst, unbeknownst to those not from India. This book taught me so many things that has deepened my understanding of the Indian political climate today. The story of Kashmir, the conjugation of all the princely states, the incredible impact of Nehru, and more. By famous Indian historian and cricket writer Ramachandra Guha.

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky were Israeli psychologists who's work on irrationality of decision making and behavioral economics went on to win the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. The book covers the research he did in all three parts of his career - on cognitive biases, on prospect theory and on happiness.

Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky analyzes the market forces surrounding the media, government, and bodies of influence and how it results in the media being subject to self-censorship and serving as a mouthpiece for the government.

An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze explore the post-independence growth of India in an economic, social and political. They draw attention to some stark, widely ignored faults in how we look at India's growth since 1947.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century French economist Thomas Piketty's groundbreaking novel that shows how a successful capitalism inevitably increases economic inequality, and investigates several solutions.

With more than 10 million YouTube subscribers, VSauce is the 62nd most popular Youtube channel there is. He typically does 10-15 minute shallow dives into a question with fantastic production quality including "What is random?", "Is it okay to touch Mars" and more.

Entertaining Video Series

With over 200 short, silent videos based off the comic strip, there is no better way to be entertained if you're a fan of Dark Humor.

Epic Fails A bunch of random videos of people falling, running into walls, trying to do stunts, and any other physically painful mishap you can imagine that provides an unprecedented amount of sadistic pleasure.

Epic Rap Battles of History This comedy series pits popular historical and pop culture figures against each other in 3-4 minute rap battles, or verbal jousts if you prefer, and spans 4 seasons. My favorites include Einstein vs Hawking and Hitler vs Darth Vader.

The Viral Fever TVF is one of the new age comedy acts that do short skits, videos, and satirical takes on various aspects of Indian pop culture.

All India Bakchod AIB is TVF's counterpart. They also do humourous skits and satire on the overarching theme of India.

Ownage Pranks OwnagePranks features a voice actor that enacts different races from African-American to Asian to Indian and more while prank calling people.

Jimmy Kimmel Jimmy Kimmel is a talk show host. His funniest shows involve asking strange questions to the public or asking the audience to record videos of themselves doing his open challenges.

Arnab Goswami's Newshour Debate Arnab Goswami is the Indian journalist notorious for being boisterous, unreasonable, repetitive, loud and arrogant. His show is an unintentional satire on Indian journalism.

Louis C.K. Harsh, un-censored, and to the point about his cynicism for life, age and being fat, Louis CK is one of my favorite comedians.

Russell Peters The popular king of Indian comedy, Russell Peters is Canadian with roots in India (in my city, Calcutta). He talks about stereotypes all over the world, accents, and immigrant life.

Non-fictional and Semi-fictional Movies

It wouldn't be feasible to list all movies I've watched and enjoyed. I'm particularly fond of semi-fictional/non-fictional movies and I watch a ton of documentaries, so here are some that I found particularly moving.

Bingeworthy, especially for a foodie. Tells stories of chefs, places, inspiration and food in some of the world's best restaurants. With a touch of magic from the jaw-dropping filmography of David Gelb, this show is stunning on the eyes, and relaxing on the wind. I'm no classical music snob, but the violin of the intro soundtrack sends you into a trance.

A Netflix series which tells the story of Columbian cocaine kingpin and leader of the Medellin Cartel, Pablo Escobar. Pablo, at the height of his career, supplied 80% of the cocaine smuggled into the US and had a modern day net worth of $55 billion.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist Based on the book by the very inspirational Mohsin Hamid and loosely based on his life. Although the movie doesn't do justice to the book, it's still a powerful movie with a strong message.

Gumrah Not a movie. Gumrah is an Indian crime TV series, which is available online. It recreates supposedly non-fictional crime stories committed by the Indian youth. It can get very cheesy and I'm almost certan the stories aren't based on true events, but they can still be shocking.

Bhutto Bhutto is a documentary that follows the lineage of the most powerful lineage of leaders in Pakistan - the Bhutto family in context of the political history of Pakistan.

Dirty Wars Follows the US journalist Jeremy Scahill, and the story of how he discovers the inhumane acts of terror that the US military carries out in the Middle East.

City of God This semi-fictional Portugese movie follows the crime scene in Brazil and features 2nd on Roger Ebert's list of best movies of 2003.

Rush Rush is a movie about racing, rivalry and friendship with no clear antagonist and protagonist that follows the epic competition between F1 racers Niki Lauda and James Hunt.

Inside Job Inside Job is a documentary and series of interviews that seeks to explain the corruption that caused the 2008 economic recession.

Linsanity Follows the inspiration struggle of Jeremy Lin, the smart Asian kid, who fought stereotypes to become one of the best players in basketball.

The Square The Square depicts the tale of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Fire in Babylon Possibly the best cricket documentary I've ever seen, Fire in Babylon follows the journey of West Indies cricket in the 70s and 80s as the small country fought apartheid for freedom, and went undefeated for 15 years.

The World Before Her This documentary follows the lives of two Indian women - one an aspiring model, and the other a Hindu nationalist member of the RSS - and shows us the cultural dichotomy India finds itself in.

Food Inc This documentary exposes the corruption and monopoly of the food industry in the US that optimizes profits by forgoing the need to produce healthy food.

Midas Formula: The Trillion Dollar Bet Follows the story of the small trillion dollar hedge fund of Nobel Laureates and financially elite of the 90s, Long Term Capital Management, that made an immense amount of money, but eventually collapsed.

Gandhi The story about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in his journey and struggle to Indian freedom.

An Inconvenient Truth A documentary meant to educate the world about the very real reality of climate change and global warming.

Michael Jackson's This Is It A story about one of the greatest performers and music artists the world has ever seen and one of my personal favourite entertainers, Michael Jackson.

Pirates of the Silicon Valley The original father of all Silicon Valley movies, Pirates was released in 1999 and features Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Paul Allen, and even Mike Markkula.

Randy Pausch: The Last Lecture One of the most inspirational videos I've ever seen, cancer-diagnosed Computer Science professor at Carnegie-Mellon Randy Pausch gives his ultimate lecture about the lessons life taught him and how they can help you.

Inside the Dark Web A documentary about the internet, surveillance, privacy, anonymity, Tor, Silk Road, bitcoin, and the deep web.

How Anonymous Hackers Changed the World How trolls on internet's 4chan assembled a large group of internet hackers clad in Guy Fawkes' masks to use collaboration amongst citizens to protest against the government.

The Pirate Bay: Away From Keyboard The story of yet another very real effort to promote democracy that meets at odds with pre-existing law. We see the details of a battle between big film and music corporates and 3 computer guys who run a torrent website, each bringing their arsenal of legal and political vs technological weapons.

Don't Talk to Police This is a lecture in Law more than a documentary where a formal criminal defence attorney describes in tremendous detail that given the current US legal system, you cannot do any positive good by speaking to the police.

How the Economic Machine Works - Ray Dalio Ray Dalio, the founder of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, created this animated 30 minute video explaining how the economy functions in a very simply way. A must watch for everybody who uses money.

Internet Censorship in ChinaXu, Mao, Halderman et al [2011] "In this work, we explore where Intrusion Detection System (IDS) devices of the Great Firewall of China (GFC) are placed for keyword filtering at AS and router level. Knowing where IDSes are attached helps us better understand the infrastructure of the firewall, gain more knowledge about its behavior and find vantage point for future circumvention techniques."

Women in Academic Science: A Changing LandscapeCeci, Ginther et al [2014] Contradicts previous assumptions of gender bias and says that gender differences in spatial and mathematical reasoning do not stem from a biological basis, but rather suggests women have "difference in attitudes toward and expectations about math careers and ability". Was published in the New York Times.

Intriguing Properties of Neural Networks Szegedy, Zaremba et al [2014] Particularly interestingly, this paper shows the instability of deep neural networks in high dimensional space by making random perturbations in correctly classified images until the net misclassifies it. It turns out that the second image is visually indistinguishable from the first, and the neural net produces strange results.

W32.Stuxnet Dossier Falliere et al [2011] A detailed dossier on the infamous Stuxnet worm - a worm that used zero-day exploits on Windows machines propagated via USB to penetrate air-gapped machines in Iran and purportedly wipe out of 1/5th of their nuclear centrifuges.

Television Serials

Directed by Chris Nolan's (the Inception and Dark Knight one) brother Jonathan Nolan, and based on Michael Crichton's 1973 film WestWorld. Westworld is a science fiction masterpiece, delving into artificial intelligence and androids, but with a flawless plot as well.

Black Mirror A dystopian science fiction British TV series akin to The Twilight Zone (1959) and Orwell's novel 1984. None of the episodes share a plot or cast. It dwells largely on the implications of very possible consequences of technology in the near future. Stephen King likes it.

Mr. Robot When looking for a Game of Thrones rebound, Mr. Robot was the perfect new show. Rated 98% on RottenTomatoes and featuring hackers, hacktivism and New York City, this show is about everything I like.

Game of Thrones Based on the book by George RR Martin, Game of Thrones tells a medieval tale of dragons, empires, war, love and death. A lot of death.

Breaking Bad Breaking Bad is about a high school Chemistry teacher that starts making meth to support his family and his cancer treatment. The character development is heart wrenching.

Entourage Entourage, based on Mark Wahlberg's life, follows an actor and his crew and celebrates the highs and lows of male friendship.

Friends This classic is a ten season journey about friendship, love, hate and comedy.

House of Cards House of Cards is a political drama that follows Kevin Spacey as the protagonist and shows just how dirty politics can get.

Sherlock This modern take of the classical detective story features Benedict Cumberbatch. The three-long-episodes-a-season format makes for a quick awesome watch.

Podcasts

New

I didn't get the concept of podcasts at first, but they eventually grew to be a significant part of my life. When you get to the point where you've heard and overheard all the songs you possess again and again, replacing music with stimulating audio is very refreshing. It lets me run errands, commute and work out effortlessly while learning something. I'd highly recommend you try them if you haven't already.

This podcast named after the book, by journalist Stephen Dubner and UChicago economist and professor Steven Levitt. They host 30-60 minute shows with very stimulating conversations with and about very interesting people from across various fields including Angela Duckworth, Miki Agarwal, Trevor Noah and broad topics such as Bad Medicine.

Hosted by Vox's editor in chief Ezra Klein, the show focuses on 1:1 style interviews focused on deep, thought-provoking questions and not populist ones. His host of impressive guests come from all walks of life, ranging from Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Yuval Harari, Kara Swisher, and more. I find it an a great way to hear about impactful people from different fields like History, Politics, Journalism, Medicine, Law, and more.

Think I'm missing something? Do you have something you think I should know about? Shoot me an email at dd367 [at] cornell [dot] edu or get in touch with me on any other form of social media. I'd love to see it!